Episode 258 features Marine veteran, CEO of Warfighter Made, Rob Blanton

Co-founder and CEO of Warfighter Made, Rob Blanton is a retired Marine serving as a volunteer for his non-profit organization full-time. The mission of Warfighter Made provides recreation therapy to ill, injured and combat-wounded service members and veterans. Listen to how he and the others got there. Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app. 

8:27 – Adversity builds mental toughness 

16:06 – I’m the proverbial if your friend jumps off a bridge, will you? Yeah, four of my friends jumped off a bridge, so I joined them.             

22:23 – The good news, I can make you a Marine, the bad news is you don’t qualify with these test scores – for anything! 

31:58 – the best memories were really the worst stories, just overcoming adversity 

36:12 – I was awarded the Silver Star for that action in Iraq, it’s our nation’s third highest award for valor 

42:52 –…that was the catalyst to start Warfighter Made 

47:19 – When I retired from the Marines in 2014, I immediately became a full-time volunteer for the organization. 

Special thanks to 4low Magazine and Maxxis Tires for support and sponsorship of this podcast. 

Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app. 

Transcript

[00:00:05.300] - 

Welcome to Conversations with Big Rich. This is an interview-style podcast. Those interviewed are all involved in the off-road industry. Being involved, like all of my guests are, is a lifestyle, not just a job. I talk to past, present, and future legends, as well as business owners, employees, media, and land use warriors, men and women who have found their way into this exciting and addictive lifestyle we call off-road. We discuss their personal history, struggles, successes, and reboots. We dive into what drives them to stay active and off-road. We all hope to shed some light on how to find a path into this world that we live and love and call off-road.

[00:00:46.530] - 

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[00:01:13.030] - 

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[00:01:39.510] - Big Rich Klein

On today's episode of Conversations with Big Rich is Robert Blanton. Robert is a US Marine Corps veteran, co-founder and CEO of Warfighter Made, and a 2017 ORMHOF Impact Award Voters Choice Recipient. Robert Blanton, Rob. You go by Rob, Correct?

[00:02:00.670] - Rob Blanton

I go by Rob.

[00:02:01.750] - Big Rich Klein

Okay, Rob. So good to have you on this podcast. I'm looking forward to finding out more about your incredible life, but also about Warfighter Made and the great work that you do there.

[00:02:16.290] - Rob Blanton

Super excited to tell you.

[00:02:17.970] - Big Rich Klein

All right. So let's get started with the basic easiest question, at least for me to ask, where were you born and raised?

[00:02:25.860] - Rob Blanton

I was born and raised in Santa Rosa, California, up there Northern California. I was there until I was 18. Then I joined the Marine Corps, and that started a whole another adventure for me.

[00:02:41.250] - Big Rich Klein

Those early years of growing up, were you in town or were you suburbia?

[00:02:45.470] - Rob Blanton

In town. Anyone who knows Santa Rosa, it's the best of both worlds. You're not too far away from some excellent riding areas like Cal Mountain and so on and so forth. And I did grow up riding dirt bikes. My father was a mechanic, so used to trade a lot of work for bikes as I was growing up. What things did your family do?

[00:03:21.290] - Big Rich Klein

Did you hunt and fish?

[00:03:24.660] - Rob Blanton

No, none of that. More of a city kid. I I did grow up riding dirt bikes. Unfortunately, my parents separated when I was pretty young, but that gave me an awesome opportunity to be raised by both sets of my grandparents. Unfortunately, my mother was a drug addict and really drove a wedge in between her and my dad. My dad wasn't a saint, but he was trying to get clean. For me as a kid, unfortunately, my mom couldn't do it. It eventually killed her later in my life. But It was one of those old sayings, you got two twin brothers that were the kids of an alcoholic. One brother was super successful and never drank in his life. And when asked why, he said, because my father was an alcoholic. And then the other brother was a massive alcoholic, failed at everything, and so on and so forth. And when asked why, he said, because my father was an alcoholic. So I surrounded myself with good people growing up, really good friends that weren't into that party lifestyle, and just grew up normal, riding dirt bikes, riding skateboards, riding BMX bikes, and then joined the Marine Corps.

[00:05:07.790] - Big Rich Klein

When you're going through school, you were with your grandparents at that point?

[00:05:16.800] - Rob Blanton

Off and on. Technically, I was living with my mom. But because of her issues, I was quite literally on my own. But I did I spent a lot of time with both sets of my grandparents, which I always attributed it was super cool because on the political spectrum, both sets of my grandparents were on opposite ends. I grew up hearing both sides, and that really helped me form my political opinions as time went on. But One set of grandparents were teenagers during the Great Depression, and I learned all about work ethic and making it happen no matter what from them. Then my other grandparents were… My grandfather was a hardworking blue collar guy, and my grandmother was a homemaker. It I got a lot of great memories from both of them, just really impacting my life and pushed me to want to do more I also had to grow up pretty fast.

[00:06:52.220] - Big Rich Klein

Right. Over the years, especially when I was growing up, I noticed that a lot with split families, that the kids that went through that either came out super strong or pretty messed up. Sometimes it was both inside a family, where an older sibling may be off the rails and the younger sibling or vice versa is focused. Driven. Yeah. It always amazes as me. One of the things I've learned also is that as a parent, you can try to do all the right things, but a child is going to be their own person as they develop. You can guide them down the right path, give them all the things that they need to be successful, and they may go a different route. Absolutely. And then you can have a child that is maybe forgotten, and that child ends up being the one that's driven. It's the personality of the person. It's a lot That's the environmental stuff as well. But still, everybody's their own person. So congrats on getting through and being the strong person you are.

[00:08:27.050] - Rob Blanton

I appreciate it. They always say, and I teach, Adversity builds mental toughness. I went through some adversities early on in my life, and not knowing that they were adversities. It was just life. I came out on this side, so far, a far better person for it.

[00:08:50.300] - Big Rich Klein

Right. When you were going through school, were you studious?

[00:08:59.250] - Rob Blanton

No, I was horrible You were horrible. Yeah. In elementary school, I was always on detention. I was suspended a whole bunch of times. Then I got to junior high school, and I was getting a little bit better, but I was still getting detentions in Saturday schools. I don't think I ever got suspended, but high school, I never really got in trouble. But the best I ever had grades was playing football because you had to have a 2. 0 to be on the team, and you had to have a 2. 5 to play. As soon as football season was I mean, I graduated high school with, I think it was a 1. 9 GPA. When I tell my kids that, I got two adult kids now, and when I used to tell my kids that when they were growing up, They're like, what do you mean a 1. 9? The lowest grade you can even get is a C, or you fail an F. I was like, no, no. Back then they had Ds, and I had a whole bunch of them.

[00:10:15.060] - Big Rich Klein

Besides football, was there anything in school that did interest you?

[00:10:21.240] - Rob Blanton

Yeah, girls, a lot.

[00:10:24.510] - Big Rich Klein

Let's see, girls, motor cycles, skateboards. Yeah, I get it.

[00:10:29.740] - Rob Blanton

Yeah, I wish that ended up railroading my football career. But once I got a car, then my focus was hanging out with friends and so on and so forth. Right.

[00:10:45.510] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah. So you say that it ruined your football career. Was that the girls or the motorcycle? The girls. The girls, okay.

[00:10:55.310] - Rob Blanton

The girls, yeah.

[00:10:55.810] - Big Rich Klein

Your interest in football.

[00:10:57.840] - Rob Blanton

I had other focuses at that time. Let's put it that way. Okay.

[00:11:03.610] - Big Rich Klein

Santa Rosa is a pretty nice area. I grew up just south of San Francisco on the peninsula, but used to coach my son against some of the Santa Rosa youth football teams when we lived in Napa. We played some games in that area. That was good. Then you get through high school with your 1. 9 GPA, and you decide to join the Marine Corps right away?

[00:11:35.680] - Rob Blanton

No, I was a junior in high school, and this will tell you how great of a student I was. I was a junior in high school, and I was sitting in an eighth grade level math class, which, if I remember correctly, I never passed that class. But we were sitting in there, and this was a I was in the classroom that didn't have desks. We all sat at a roundtable. I was actually in there with a couple of seniors. All of us older people were sitting at the same table, and one of my best friends wasn't there. I'm that guy. It's like, Listen, bro, if you're cutting class, let me know because I'm cutting with you. Now I'm a little upset because I'm sitting in this class without him. Yeah. I'm like, Man. Then I was thinking, I was like, Man, I haven't seen him all day today, or I hadn't seen him yet. Later on in the class, he comes walking in. I'm like, Bro, where Where are you at? He's like, I just joined the Marine Corps. At that time, my father… I was born in '74. My old man was 19 at the time.

[00:12:57.640] - Rob Blanton

He wasn't really old enough to get drafted for Vietnam or anything like that. So he never joined the military.

[00:13:05.660] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, he was right on that outer edge.

[00:13:09.530] - Rob Blanton

Right. Yeah. And so my both sets of my grandparents both served My maternal grandparents, he served during World War II, but never went overseas. And my maternal grandfather served in Korea as a cook. I had their influences. But as far as I was concerned at the time, a Marine was just another name for an army guy. I just didn't know. Being the brother that he was, he obviously gave my name to the recruiter, and the recruiter started blowing us up. There was five of us that were always hanging out. And slowly but surely, everybody started joining I started doing some soul searching. I was just like, Okay, what am I going to do with my life? I know I'm definitely not going on to college or Santa Rosa has a really good JC. I know I'm not doing that. I think everybody expects me to go work for my grandfather, which I don't necessarily want to do. I was just like, Hey, you know what? I think I'm going to join the Marines and see what this is all about. So then the great story about all this is five of us join. All five of us eventually became Marines, but we were all supposed to be on the buddy program.

[00:14:44.980] - Rob Blanton

And when it came down to leave on our original date, there's only two of us left. Everyone else eventually became a Marine, but there was only two of us left that was leaving on our original date. And when You are going through maps, we went through Oakland. When we were going through maps, they're making a big deal about this moment of truth thing. The moment of truth is you go in and you get an opportunity to admit to anything that's going to get you in trouble when you leave for boot camp. We were leaving for boot camp literally that night. There was some military member standing out front. He's like, Oh, Yeah. How many of you here on the buddy program? There's a handful of us with our hands up in the air. He's like, Yeah, one of you guys is going to get screwed. During the moment of truth, your buddy is going to admit to something. He's going to get sent home, and you're going to be all by yourself, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, okay, whatever. Man, I walk into that moment of truth. I don't say anything. I swear in. And I walk out and there's my boy, the first one to join, sitting on what they call the bench of woe, and I walk up to him and I'm like, Bro, what's going on?

[00:16:06.360] - Rob Blanton

He's like, Hey, man. The other night, I was over at a friend's house. We were partying a little bit. I got high and they're sending me home. I got to do another drug waiver. I'm not leaving for another two weeks. So I'm like, Man, here I am. I am the proverbial. If your friend jumps off a bridge, will you? Yeah, four of my friends jumped off a bridge, so I joined them. And now I'm the only one going on our original ship date. That was an eye opener going off to boot camp, especially doing it alone. But I had a couple of buddies that, out of the five of us, two ended up going together, and they didn't have a very successful career. They basically blamed it on never really growing up because they had each other to constantly fall back on. But eventually, they got separated from the military. They never finished their time. I was very fortunate. Then out of the five of us, only two of us completed our four-year enlistment, and I was the only one that continued on and eventually retired. Okay.

[00:17:22.220] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, that makes sense. I've heard that story before, the buddy system. My dad and his best friend, who I considered him my uncle, did that. But that was a different time with them. It was back in the '50s, and they were both mechanics, machinists, and Boot was a lot different, and probably Army, too. So that probably made a difference. But when you talked about your grandfather, people thought you were going to work with him. What work did he do He had a very successful…

[00:18:05.510] - Rob Blanton

Basically, it was what would be considered an HVAC company today, but it was industrial. At the time, they specialized in the old industrial heating boilers, and that was his forte, and that's what started the business. But then they expanded into massive sheet metal ducting and still heating and cooling and stuff like that on a much bigger level. Okay.

[00:18:41.180] - Big Rich Klein

All right. You said that your dad was 19 and 74. I understand that time period because at that time I was 16. So it wasn't too far behind your dad there at that time. But That was a crazy time.

[00:19:03.380] - Rob Blanton

Well, my old man turned 19 in September, and I was born in December. Like I said, that was a crazy time. Then I had my son when I was 19, I'm 50 now. Thankfully, my son, who's 30, getting ready to turn 31, broke that cycle. But he still doesn't have any kids, which actually irritates It's the crap out of my wife and I.

[00:19:35.160] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, it'll happen more than likely at some point.

[00:19:39.040] - Rob Blanton

We're putting more faith in our daughter now. Oh, there you go. Who's 27.

[00:19:44.660] - Big Rich Klein

We have a lot of similarities, the daughter and son and kids and all that stuff. So I'm just that generation ahead of you there. That's all.

[00:20:04.300] - Rob Blanton

Yeah.

[00:20:05.060] - Big Rich Klein

And I didn't do the military because at my time, it was just at the end of the Vietnam conflict and the And I ended in '73, and I graduated high school in '76. And it was like, okay, well, the next thing is to college because there was no push or there was no thought of even going into the military at that time, even though my dad had served, like I said, and was proud of that fact. It's interesting how time does that.

[00:20:42.780] - Rob Blanton

It was definitely a different time in the '70s. It's also why Warfighter Made, I'm going to jump ahead here a little bit. It's also why Warfighter Made. We have a standing order. No matter what you're doing, if you see somebody walking by with a Vietnam your veteran hat on, you stop what you're doing, and you go up and you shake that veteran's hand and welcome them home. I usually tell them, Thank you for leading the way. Depending on how long that conversation lasts, then I always tell them, too, that it's now my generation of warfighters responsibility to ensure that the next generation of warfighter, is treated the same way that we were. There could never be another Vietnam era veteran, the way they were treated and everything. We can't allow that to happen again. So can't let history repeat itself like that.

[00:21:48.970] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, they got a pretty raw deal.

[00:21:51.140] - Rob Blanton

They did, absolutely, 100 %.

[00:21:52.730] - Big Rich Klein

And it had nothing to do with those individuals.

[00:21:58.280] - Rob Blanton

No. And it's why we love We love catering to Vietnam vets at Warfighter Made. But we'll get to that when that time comes. Okay.

[00:22:11.450] - Big Rich Klein

So you join the Marine Corps, you get through boot, What was your- What was my MOS, my job, my military occupational specialty?

[00:22:23.250] - Rob Blanton

Well, let's just say that 1. 9 coming out of high school did me zero favor. I went and took the ASVAB, which is the test that everybody who wants to join the military has to take. Prior to that, I had been dealing with the recruiter, and I was really interested in any jobs that had to do with driving. I loved driving. And little did I know at the time, they were just going to make me a motor tea operator, which is not the most glamorous job in the world. So I had all these jobs picked out that I wanted to do. And I went and took the ASVAB and came back, and my recruiter got the test scores. He's like, Hey, man, I got some good news, and I got some bad news. The good news is I can make you a Marine. The bad news is you don't qualify with these test scores-For anything. For any of these jobs. I mean, I can't even... I don't even qualify to drive anything. And he's just like, No, let's just say you're lucky, I can make you a Marine. I had to do what's called open contract.

[00:23:40.300] - Rob Blanton

What open contract is, it's basically the needs of the Marine Corps. When you finish boot camp and then you go on to your next school, which is called Marine combat training, the Marine Corps is looking at their needs, and you could become from anything. From if they need cooks or drivers or, Infantry men, whatever. Whatever they need is that's what you're going to become. But I actually had a really good recruiter, and he's a really good guy. I was a little overweight, not bad, but a little overweight. And so he used to spend some time with me. We used to go mountain bike riding everywhere in Santa Rosa, and we go for jogs and stuff like that. So he took care of me, and he's like, Listen, there's going to be an opportunity when you first check into your next school called MCT, Marine Combatt Training, they're probably going to pull everybody who is open contract into a room. It was an old military quanson hunt, and they're going to offer you a job. And I suggest whatever it is, you take it because you're going to get probably something you don't want. So they brought us all into that room, and it just so happened that the one job that they were offering was Infantry, and I jumped on it and took it, and that started my Infantry career, which I only did for a year and a half.

[00:25:27.870] - Rob Blanton

And then I immediately went I fast-tracked, in a sense. I immediately went to Force Recon, which is special operations for the Marine Corps. I made a career, 19 of my 21 years, I was in Force Recon, either operating as a Force Reconnaissance Marine or doing jobs making Force Reconnaissance Marines.

[00:25:56.340] - Big Rich Klein

Very good. You You excelled.

[00:26:02.340] - Rob Blanton

I excelled. I made a lot of mistakes, learned from those mistakes, and just continued to push forward.

[00:26:17.910] - Big Rich Klein

Perfect. Where were you stationed?

[00:26:21.580] - Rob Blanton

I did 18 years on Camp Pendleton. I joined in '93 Right after I graduated high school. We graduated in June and July, I was on the infamous yellow footprint in Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego. I was in third Battalion, first Marines on Camp Pendleton. That was my Infantry Unit. I went to Somalia with them almost right after Black Hawk Down had happened. That was in my first combat deployment. Then I took the Force Recon in-Doc, which was like the in-test. I ended up taking that thing twice and made it my second time and then just had an awesome career. The average Marine spends 2-3 years at a unit. Force Recon had a requirement of five years because they were trying to get there. They put a lot of money into your training and your schooling and so on and so forth, and they were trying to get at least two deployments out of you. I ended up spending just shy of 10 years there, which is unheard of for military units. I enjoyed every minute that I was operating there. Then I went on to schools that basically take force reconnaissance marines and give them the special skills that they need to go and do deployments and stuff like that, like close quarters battle training, urban sniper, recon and surveillance, and stuff like that.

[00:28:15.150] - Big Rich Klein

Then you'd mentioned, we're going to jump back a little bit, you'd mentioned that when you got a car, what was that first car?

[00:28:27.830] - Rob Blanton

My first car that I actually had registered. My mom had a bunch of boyfriends, and they were always trying to be my friend or something like that. One of her boyfriends gave me a 1969 Opal Cadet rally, but that was never... That was never registered to me. A matter of fact, me and a couple of friends cut school one day when it was raining in Norcow. I grew up by the Sanoma County Fairgrounds. They had big That's where I learned how to ride dirt bikes, and they just had big open dirt fields, which they use for parking lots. So we took that Opal Cadet out there. I'm 14, don't have a driver's license, and we're out there just in a donuts like crazy, and I eventually get a flat tire. So go to change the flat tire, and the jack slips off of the rear a frame rail and goes right through the gas tank. And so I was like, well, it was fun. See you later. And left that car there and it ended up getting impounded. And then a couple of years later, I was doing the junkyard calls and found that car sitting out there and it didn't part it out and everything.

[00:29:51.880] - Rob Blanton

But the first car that was registered to me was a 1986 Dodge Charger Shelby Edition, which was a manual, had the little 2. 2 liter turbo motor in it. And my dad, I grew up drag racing with my dad at Sears Point, now called Sanoma Raceway, I believe. He had built a V8 Vega, and that thing ran high elevens. I just remember being four years old with a helmet and a lap belt on sitting in his passenger seat, looking like the great gazoo there. I couldn't see over the dash. I couldn't see over the doorsill. But I just remember the tree operator walking up and tapping on the glass to get me to look at him to make sure my chin strap was fastened and to make sure that my seat belt was on. Then my dad, like I said, that thing ran high elevens. I was a street racer growing up with that little four-cylinder turbo, just being a menace to basically everybody around me. I was a horrible, horrible person. When it came to just… I look back on some of the things that I did, and I would kick the crap out of my son if he ever did any of that stuff.

[00:31:26.820] - Rob Blanton

But when you grow up in the same area, you just feel like you own it. I was not a very good citizen back then with that car. All right.

[00:31:44.420] - Big Rich Klein

We'll jump back into your military. And what part of all of that were the best memories out of?

[00:31:58.930] - Rob Blanton

Oh, man, the best memories were really the worst stories, just the overcoming adversity and just the times you don't think you're... You just never see the light at the end of the tunnel and some of these missions you're on, whether they're training or actual combat missions. But it always has to do with the guys. When you force recon in the '90s and mid-2000s was the pinnacle of the My brain core. I'm at that because I just turned 50. I'm at that age now where I'm really reflecting on a lot of the things that I've done. I look in the mirror and I'm like, who the hell were you? Where did that come from? Just super proud of that stuff and whatnot. The life that my wife and I, My wife was also a Marine. I did 21 years, she did 22 years. We met at a school in the Marine Corps called Corporal's Course, which is a leadership school for basically junior leaders. I met and married her ass in five months. All of a sudden, I just realized, Man, I got something good here. I'm locking this town. Thirty-some-od years later, here we are.

[00:33:32.490] - Rob Blanton

A lot of things with her were great memories. Just my career. As a family, we got stationed in Okinawa, Japan, and I was pissed when it happened. It turned out to be one of the best three years of my life. I had a really good brother that I served with that followed me over there with his wife. I had a really good brother that I was already stationed there. It was an amazing opportunity in the training I did. Then I volunteered to go up to a unit called Third Reconnaissance battalion. Specifically, I was a pretty senior Marine at this point, and I volunteered to go up there specifically to take a platoon of young reconnaissance Marines to Iraq, which I had already been to. That I would have been my third. I was getting ready to take these guys on my third tour to Iraq. I had an excellent platoon. We had a good deployment. Unfortunately, we got in a pretty massive firefight, and I lost a Marine during that time. But I always say, I didn't lose him to stupidity. I didn't lose him to complacency, and I didn't lose him to a lack of training.

[00:35:12.930] - Rob Blanton

I simply lost him to the circumstances of the fight. Any one of us, including myself, who would have been in his situation, would have met the same fate. We just didn't know. Basically, the first shot of this ambush that we got caught in took him out. That was super tough, but you do understand you're there to do a job, you understand the risks. Now I just try and live every day to honor him and just be a good person because he can't be. Right.

[00:36:02.340] - Big Rich Klein

That's honorable. You were awarded the Silver Star?

[00:36:12.560] - Rob Blanton

I was awarded the Silver Star for that action. It's our nation's third highest award for valor, below the Medal of Honor and what's called the Cross. For us Marines, it'd be called the Navy Cross. There's only 150 of us in the Marine Corps since 9/11, 2001, who've been awarded that award Wow.

[00:36:48.750] - Big Rich Klein

Okay. That's pretty heavy.

[00:36:50.670] - Rob Blanton

It's funny. A lot of people don't even know what it is. It's usually when it comes up or somebody says something and they're like, Oh, So is that like the Bronze Star? And I'm like, Yeah, it's like the Bronze. It's not even close to the Bronze Star, but yeah.

[00:37:10.670] - Big Rich Klein

It's hard to explain if somebody doesn't have any semblance of understanding of the military.

[00:37:19.500] - Rob Blanton

And then obviously, just being humble about it and whatnot, then it gets hard to try and explain and whatnot.

[00:37:25.820] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, exactly. So Let's talk now about... I mean, we've got a good foundation on where you started and what you became. In 2012, you and a couple of others started Warfighter. Is that correct?

[00:37:52.480] - Rob Blanton

Yeah, that's correct. Actually, what led to that, which is a huge part of my story that I got to get out there is-absolutely. You know, veterans in active duty military, we have an uncommonly high suicide rate, unfortunately. After being awarded the Silver Star, I was starting to have a lot of issues with post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injury. Also in that, that that ambush, me and a brother got blown up in a vehicle by a guy wearing a suicide vest. So I was having a lot of problems with post-traumatic stress that was primarily manifesting itself in anger issues. It also didn't help that my rock, my wife, as soon as we came came back from Okinawa in 2009, she immediately got deployed to Afghanistan. So we're literally just moving back to California. Both my kids are teenagers. Both my kids are going through their teenager stuff. I have undiagnosed post-traumatic stress at this time, traumatic brain injury. My wife gets deployed, and she's gone for eight months, I think it was. We've just bought a brand new house. They literally brought all of our household goods to us, and we stacked it in a room in the house, and the wife's gone.

[00:39:46.870] - Rob Blanton

Now I'm a Marine. I'm still working my job. I'm a dad. I'm trying to take care of my kids, doing all their sports events, trying to help them with their things, also just letting them I'm trying to let them to be teenagers. I'm trying to handle all the cooking, the cleaning, paying the bills, all the stuff that my wife as a active duty Marine could just crush. I was struggling big time. It didn't help that I was also self-medicating with alcohol, drinking my face off. But finally, a brother of mine basically a peer, someone who I had grown up with in the reconnaissance community with, who he and I, with Art Platoon, actually inserted into Iraq before the ground war started, came up to me and basically called me out, just like, I don't know what's wrong with you. I don't know what you're doing, but you need to fix yourself because you're getting ready to get yourself in a whole lot of trouble. That started my journey to seek help through the military, which unfortunately wasn't a very good journey for me because I was a really senior Marine, but I was nowhere near...

[00:41:16.780] - Rob Blanton

I still had five years until I can retire. But some of the people that I was talking to were looking at me with the rank that I had on my collar, thinking that I'm getting ready to retire, and I'm trying to pad my I'm trying to pad my books, my medical records. It was a tough go. Then when I finally got into a position where I was getting some help, the very first thing they want to do is force you to take meds. I wasn't about that. Tell me what's wrong with me so I can work through it and fix myself. But part of my post-traumatic stress and my traumatic brain injury, I wasn't sleeping very well. I'd go for weeks, sleep in 2 hours a night, fragmented. It finally took a toll on me. One night, I wake up and I'm staring in the darkness, and I'm like, I'm a massive failure. My wife would be so much better off without me. I'm ruining my relationship with my kids. They would be so much better off without me, and I was going to kill myself. Fortunately, my wife woke up, stopped me, made me realize that my thought process was all jacked up, and laid it out for me, made me understand that my mentality was wrong.

[00:42:52.040] - Rob Blanton

That was the catalyst to start Warfighter Made with two brothers, Brian Meyer, who's a combat wounded explosive ordnance, basically a bomb squad Marine. He's a triple amputee, and our brother Butch Lynch, who, as we love to say, was an old-school Cool hot rodder builder painter. Unfortunately, he passed away in 2020 due to complications from a stroke he had. So, yeah, but that's what started That's what started Warfighter Maiden. The big thing that we were talking about was, listen, I know how you feel. I've been there. I've walked in those boots. Let me show you a different feeling.

[00:43:45.950] - Big Rich Klein

Excellent that you were able to take that time when you were way down at the lowest and then create something to bring others that in that same situation up.

[00:44:03.730] - Rob Blanton

Yeah. Then we started Warfighter Maine. We were just adapting and customizing vehicles for catastrophically wounded warfighters, basically our brothers and sisters who went overseas and became amputees We were adapting and customizing their vehicles free of charge is what we were doing. Butch's daughter had met a guy, and he was a fabricator. His name was Adam Fitsa, or is Adam Fitsa, who is now a He's got Fitsa Racing, and he's part of the OTSFF. I hope I said that right. 6100 Spectrofi truck. And He was helping us create some of these projects. He comes to me one day, and he's like, Hey, I also manage a Lucas Oil Regional team. My boss has a predator desert buggy, and it's got a passenger seat. It's short course. Why don't we start taking vets and putting them in as passengers? We started doing that, and That was the start of what we were referring to as adrenaline therapy. Started meeting a whole bunch of short course racers and so on and so forth. Then we got invited to the Mint 400 by the same guy, Bill Balansky, who also, unfortunately, has passed away. Bill had a heavy metal truck that he was racing that Adam was building and in charge of.

[00:45:59.950] - Rob Blanton

While we were there, a lot of the short course racers were also there. The Merrill brothers from UTV Wolfpack introduced us to Polaris Razor. It was literally a five-minute conversation. It was a minute conversation, and it happened to be a gentleman by the name of Jason Diffucia, who was one of the marketing managers for Polaris Razor. He's no longer there. Jason, after After basically the Merrill Brothers gave him the pitch of who I was and what we do at Warfighter Made, Jason's like, Okay, cool. Yeah. Okay. If I gave you two players' raises, what are you going to do with them? I was like, literally pulled something out of my butt. I was just like, Oh, well, we're going to start taking vets, and we're going to put them behind the wheel, and we're going to call it recreational therapy and just have a lot of fun. He's like, All right. All right. Excellent. Yeah. Okay. All right. We're going to go ahead and hire a Joey D. At UTV underground and the Martelli brothers at Mad Media. We're going to go ahead and shoot a whole video about this. Then we're going to tie it to a call to action that if this video gets 100,000 views in 24 hours, we're going to give you two more machines.

[00:47:19.100] - Rob Blanton

Well, that was 2014, and Polaris Razor has been one of our biggest sponsors still to this day. It's just been a wild ride with them and all the things that we've done over the years. Now, we've built almost 30 vehicles for catastrophically wounded warfighters to include Motorcycles, trucks, a lot of players products. We're all volunteer here. When I retired from Warfighter May. I'm sorry. When I retired from the Marines in 2014, I immediately became a full-time volunteer for the organization. I don't work any other jobs. This is it. This is what I love doing. My right-hand man, Danny Novoa has been with me since 2016. He's in the same boat. He's a full-time volunteer. He's our lead builder now. He loves it so much that he's specifically used his GI Bill to go to the FAB school and just to hone his skills. With him, he and I have done some incredible things, to include winning the Mint 400 in the Vintage military class five times in a row. Nice.

[00:48:51.120] - Big Rich Klein

Very nice. I met you personally just this last weekend at the MIT 400, and it was great to do that and to see the athletes. There's no doubt in my mind, they're athletes that you had out there. One of the motorcycle riders really impressed me. He's very focused. I don't remember his name, but he was riding one the motor cycles and was a double amputee.

[00:49:34.230] - Rob Blanton

Double leg amputee, yeah. Jesse Williamson. Jesse Williamson. He was 19 when he was wounded. He was what's called a limb salvage, which they're trying to save the lower limbs for a while. Then eventually, they're like, your quality of life would probably be so It's much better without these. But we actually had three riders. I was trying to get our our motorcycle number to be our moto team number to be 324. Three guys He has two legs, four prosthetics because they only had two good legs between them. Then one of the riders, Mitch, who's a combat wounded single leg amputee above the knee, left foot. Unfortunately, he was having an issue with his prosthetic fitting properly. He decided just to let Jesse and Dan Stoneer, who is a single leg amputee, Marine, let those two rip it out on the course. The boys got the finish, which is exactly what we're looking for. Just want to I want to get these guys out there and let them have fun and get that finish. Then we also had Tim Hall of Tim Hall Racing, who Tim's a soldier. He's a combat-looted double leg amputee. We built him a razor We met him at the Mint 400, surprised him with a razor, and then built that thing out with Seth Quintero.

[00:51:29.560] - Rob Blanton

Seth King Tarot's uncle had a fab shop called King Tarot Motorsports. He helped us build Tim's machine, specifically for Tim's injuries. Everything on that, that Polaris Razor was basically designed for Tim to be able to get out if he was ever in an accident or no matter what attitude the vehicle was in. It was also designed for Tim as a double leg amputee to be able to work on his own vehicle if he had to do a race course repair or something like that. Tim has since donated that machine back to us because he went over to the dark side to another UTV brand and built his own machine. But he still reps Warfighter Made loud and proud. He finished, which was awesome because him and his wife were married on the Mint 400 stage last year. It was literally their one-year anniversary, and he got that finish, which we all know what it's all about. Right.

[00:52:50.530] - Big Rich Klein

That's so cool. You said you'd done how many vehicles so far?

[00:53:00.360] - Rob Blanton

We got to be close to 30 now. Thirty now, okay.

[00:53:03.640] - Big Rich Klein

How are you able to do those vehicles? Are you taking donations or how does things work?

[00:53:15.160] - Rob Blanton

Yeah, donations. We're very fortunate. Again, through the Lucas Oil Off-Road series, we met a guy who has always He loved what we do and not a vet himself, but has a family foundation that every year they donate money to us, a very large sum of money that we use to create these projects. Wirecare is a big sponsor of ours, financial and product. Prp is a big sponsor One of ours. Aaron, I know you did a podcast with him. Aaron's actually on our board, and so is Gary Hogley. A great story What I love about Gary real fast is in the '90s at First Force, we had Chenith light strike vehicles, the three-seat Dume Buggies, right? The DR3s. We all called them channel withs because we didn't know any better. Matter of fact, I saw Lynn at the Nora a couple of years ago, and I was like, Lynn, I got to ask you a question. How do you pronounce your last name? And he's like, It's Kenneth, like Kenneth. And I was like, Son of a bitch. I've been saying it wrong for like 30 years now. But when we had those things, they weren't really a DOD, Department of Defense, item.

[00:54:57.910] - Rob Blanton

So the motor tea operator mechanics that work on our Humvees and our five tons and all that stuff didn't really have the knowledge base to work on those. My unit went out in town and basically hired B&R Buggy to maintain, give driving classes. While Gary and I never crossed path on what we call the compound at first force, we were definitely there at the exact same time. We know all the exact same people. Here we are 30 years later, and Gary is also a board member for us. He was instrumental in us getting one of the Chenith Livestrike vehicles that First Force Reconstance Company had, and that is our Mexican 1,000 race vehicle.

[00:55:59.640] - Big Rich Klein

Nice. Then Mike is also on the board, right?

[00:56:04.200] - Rob Blanton

Yeah. So Admin Mike is our chairman. We all came together. Basically, Gary, Admin Mike and myself came together over, I'll just say, Danny got in a little bit of trouble due to, again, some issues with posttraumatic stress and whatnot. We all came together not really knowing one another at the time to provide assistance to Danny. That's how we all met. We were already doing short course races. We had somebody donate a mini open truck to us, a Ford Ranger. And so we were taking that at the regional series of Lucas Oil, and we were putting different vets behind the wheel, to include George Earle, who was a Vietnam veteran Three Purple Heart, three Bronze stars, well known in the Baja world for motorcycle racing and nine cars. But we got him behind the wheel of our, we call it the Dangeranger. So he was able to... Actually, he put our Dangeranger in the grave. He was going around a corner and a leaf spring broke and dug the into the track and it flipped them. The team was able to get the truck running, and he was able to race the next day, but the damage was done.

[00:57:41.730] - Rob Blanton

Then we had John and Larry, who are two Vietnam vets. We had them race with us. Seventy-eight years old, these two guys are. They grew up together, joined the Air Force together, and from Texas. We met them and we pulled them out of a wash during the Mexican 1000. We just became fast friends after that. We had them come out last year to the 400, and they drove beefy our Humvee for us. It's our passion to get back to Vietnam vets. We've even had Bob Bauer came out to one of our events. He didn't want to drive, but, man, he loved buckling the vets in and just swapping. Bob, just swapping stories and just having a good time. A lot of people don't know that Bob was in the Air Force during Vietnam, and we I like to make sure that people know that, especially our legends and off-road that are also veterans. A lot of people don't know Mike Perlman of Nora as an army vet, because it's just for whatever reason that era The guys just don't talk about it. Now we love letting them know and showing them appreciation.

[00:59:07.110] - Big Rich Klein

That's awesome. Baha Baur is a special guy. That's for sure. Without a doubt. And yeah, it was really good seeing him this last weekend, too.

[00:59:21.650] - Rob Blanton

Yeah.

[00:59:22.690] - Big Rich Klein

So then, how can people and businesses that listen to this podcast help Warfighter?

[00:59:32.910] - Rob Blanton

Well, we want to build relationships. It's easy for people just to write a a couple of $100 check and go forth and do good things. But we really want to spend some time with them and get them to see what it is that we're really doing and realize that I got a dedicated crew of volunteers here, and the overwhelming majority of us are Our Veterans, and we're full-time. Warfighter Made only has one contracted employee, and we just hired her a few years ago. We're on our 12th year now, 13th year. But to answer your question, they can look us up on the web at warfightermade. Org. They can also look at our social medias to get a feel for who we are and what we do at warfightermade on Instagram and Facebook and X, formerly known as Twitter. Or we're here in Temecula, California, is where we're headquartered out of. If we're here basically Monday through Friday and select Saturdays, our business hour, say 10: 00 to 4: 00, that's only because we're mostly volunteers. But I normally get here at 9: 00, and we normally leave after 5: 00 or so. We love people when they stop by and hang out and so on and so forth.

[01:01:16.710] - Big Rich Klein

Excellent. And is there anything else that I've missed that you would like to discuss?

[01:01:24.350] - Rob Blanton

Yeah. Our MINT 400 program and our Nora program is we take vets, and we basically put them behind the wheel of our vintage military vehicles. So Flyer 22 that has five peated the MINT 400, I mean, we had five different vets, including myself and Danny. We had five different vets drive. We had six different vets, I believe, that drove Beefy our Humvee. Tim Hall, in his personal UTV, rotated a couple of vets through the steering wheel. And then, of course, our moto team had three vets that two raced. Oh, and I got to also say another nonprofit, Vets. You can find them online, Vets in Motorsports. They provided pit support for us on Saturday Saturday. John McBurren, one of the founders of that, used to help us out, volunteer here. He started that organization pretty much to help veterans who are trying to get competitive racing programs going. Right now, they're really big for KOH, King of the Hammers. So if any of the vets are listening to this and you have a competitive off-road program, and a little bit of pit support would help you guys out. Definitely look up Vets in Motorsports on social media.

[01:03:12.450] - Rob Blanton

And of course, he enlisted the help of Tim Morton, in Baha Bound moto to support our team on Saturday, which was super awesome for us. And then for any vets that are listening, if you're not into off-road, which I don't know why you'd be listening to this podcast if you weren't into off-road. But we also work with a whole host of other nonprofits, because we know that every vet that walks through our doors isn't going to be 100 % into what it is that we're providing. But if they're walking through our doors, it's telling me that they're looking for something different. So we work with all kinds of nonprofits, from hunting and fishing, to scuba diving, to horse therapies. There's another nonprofit, and don't get these confused, Vet Motorsports, veteran empowerment through motorsports. They're the on road people to what warfighter made is off road. So there's just all kinds out there. So if anybody's listening and they know a veteran that might, could benefit from something, have them reach out to us. We're here for vets, 100 %.

[01:04:28.520] - Big Rich Klein

That's excellent. I want to say, Rob, thank you so much for sharing your life and what you're doing. I'm really appreciative of the fact that I got a chance to meet you. I want to come down to Temecula and hang out and see more about what you guys are about. So expect me to come wandering in someday.

[01:04:56.650] - Rob Blanton

I'll leave the door open.

[01:04:58.470] - Big Rich Klein

Perfect. I want to say thank you so much for spending the time with us. I want to let everybody know that that's listening to this, that please reach out to robblenton@warfightermade, and especially if you're a vet or you want to help the vets realize a dream. So please help out.

[01:05:24.060] - Rob Blanton

If a personal contact, robert@warfightermade. Org. Perfect.

[01:05:30.920] - Big Rich Klein

I appreciate your time today, Rob, and anything I can do to help you in the future, just let me know.

[01:05:37.960] - Rob Blanton

Big Rich, thanks for having this platform for people like us to get our stories out.

[01:05:42.610] - Big Rich Klein

Absolutely. All right. You take care and have a great day.

[01:05:46.740] - Rob Blanton

Thank you so much. Bye bye. Bye bye.

[01:05:49.790] - Big Rich Klein

Well, that's another episode of Conversations with Big Rich. I'd like to thank you all for listening. If you could do us a favor and leave us a review on any podcast service that you happen to be listening on, or send us an email or a text message or a Facebook message, and let me know any ideas that you have, or if there's anybody that you have that you think would be a great guest, please forward the contact information to me so that we can try to get them on. And always remember, live life to the fullest. Enjoying life is a must. Follow your dreams and live life with all the gusto you can. Thank you.